High-Throughput Biology, Molecular Inventories, and Databases
Maybe the most exciting frontier in modern biology is the rapid and vast accumulation of biological information at the physiological, cellular, molecular and sub-molecular scales. Insights gained from these investigations are now beginning to characterize and rationalize detailed structural and temporal mechanisms that govern the functionality of living systems. The targeted molecular scale studies of specific phenomena are accompanied by constantly improving large-scale assessments of genome-wide expression patterns, networks of molecular interactions, the simultaneous identification of most expressed proteins, the comprehensive profiling of cellular metabolites, global assessments of immune systems, and large-scale functional scans of nervous systems and the human brain. These exciting techniques are generating unprecedented amounts of high-quality data that await systemic interpretation and integration. Labs around the world are refining our understanding of motifs in gene sequences, gene circuitry, and the control of gene expression. Established and novel methods of thermodynamics and kinetics, combined with ever more comprehensive knowledge of the chemical and biophysical properties of amino acids, are permitting increasingly reliable predictions of the three-dimensional structures of complex macromolecules. These predictions, in turn, are suggesting insights into specific molecular interactions and, notably, the potential of affecting pathological functioning through pharmacogenetics based drug intervention.
The Frontiers conference will highlight a variety of innovative
high-throughput methods, many of which were unthinkable merely a decade
ago, and complement the presentations with descriptions of state-of-the-art
efforts of organizing data in repositories and databases. Both aspects
will be represented by speakers focusing on genomic, proteomic, and higher
levels of the biological organization, all the way to some fascinating
inroads into the functioning of the brain.